I know I am not alone when I say this has been the weirdest, longest year I have had in a very, long time!
And it’s only April!
I mean, it trumps the strife of past trials, the anxiety of past situations, and the sorrow of past losses!
This Coronavirus / Social Distance Protocol has been an unprecedented, once in a lifetime, kind of situation that has impacted the entire world! Every family, every household, everyone everywhere has been affected by this in one way or another!
It has been crazy! It has been hard! It has been something we have never dealt with, and I hope we never have to deal with it again!
Now, I was going to post some ideas for others to use for surviving this social distance lifestyle, but I am going to post it in a blog format of how WE have survived by doing certain things…
- We distance ourselves from each other at home.
Something of great importance in our world is personal space.
I am a single mom with five kids. One is a teenager, one is just months away from being the same, and one is almost 10 years old. Then we have the infant twins.
To keep the peace, I value the personal space of my children over my own. Yes, I understand this is not the choice many people would suggest, but I have recently discovered that the happiness and “stress-free” faces of my children give me more peace than my personal space. Plus, I get lots of personal space when I am in my room where I retreat to, less often, these days.
- LOTS of outdoor time!
If it wasn’t for living in the country, we would have lost our sanity long ago!
My boys live outside on the best of days, and the worst of days. They dig, play tag, hide and seek, farm, battle, nerf wars, and just play with the animals that are around our house; real and stuffies. Haha!
The babies have been able to enjoy some outdoor time, as well. Taking walks up and down our little, country road in their stroller with me and the kiddos, and just sitting and watching all of us do things. They have also enjoyed watching the chickens and other animals roam around, too.
- Therapy for everyone!
Now, this isn’t the therapy that most people would expect, but it has been amazing for me and the minions!
Cooking therapy for myself and Micah. He LOVES to help me in the kitchen. Just me and him, alone, working together to make something for everyone.
He loves to make brownies, cookies, and cakes mostly. But he wants to help me with anything I am doing in there, and it does so much for him!
Titus likes to just sit and talk to me, so we sit together and chat often. He has some of the most amazing ideas in that brain of his! And his monologues are gut splitting hilarious!
Levi mostly takes care of his own therapy, alone or talking to his father on the phone. But his greatest therapy of all is playing with the twins! He ADORES these babies! He will spend hours just laying in the floor with them, sitting up with them and showing them funny stuff on his phone, watching little pre-school cartoons on Netflix with them, and just loving on them.
Me? Well, my personal therapy is my writing, some reading, LONG showers, and walking around the flower gardens and looking at the amazing things that were planted by the generations before me. And thunderstorms! I will sit and enjoy a good storm as long as I can without getting soaked! My favorite part about the storms is when they are blowing in, and I can get amazing pictures of the fronts!
Also, the greatest thing to boost my spirits is when I see the spirits of my children boosted as well. That is the ultimate happy for this mama, living the quarantine lifestyle.
- Finding projects and ideas outside of school and chores!
Before we were told to stay at home, I knew it was coming. I went to the store and got puzzle books, reading material, mind bending games, and some other fun things for us to entertain ourselves with through this time.
What I forgot was printer paper! So, all the printable things that are being sent to us from the school, plus the material I am finding online that we could be using I am unable to print off, because I forgot printer paper! (sigh)
At first, I thought I had plenty of printer paper. And I did! What happened to it? I’m so glad you asked! This is the fun part!
My boys had been using my printer’s scanning feature to scan random items around the house! I’m talking, photos, papers, signs, wallets, cards, toys, food (candy mostly), body parts!
The sheets of paper they had been bringing me, I didn’t even think about them coming from my only reem of paper! I was too entertained by their antics to think about it.
In conclusion, it doesn’t take much to survive this situation, but on some days it takes all we have.
And I understand that all we have isn’t much sometimes as well. There have been days I have had nothing left to give. No laundry, dishes, cleaning, school work, or chores would be done. No games played. No Talks given. Just, barely getting through and doing the bare necessities. And that’s okay!
What is most important is finding your survival tools, and using them!
Here are a few things in our little toolbox we have used:
Long showers
DIY Projects
Going for walks outside our house
Baking
Cooking
Planting things
Playing boardgames
Playing cardgames
Binging Netflix or Hulu with snacks
Moving furniture and rearranging rooms
Scavenger hunts (indoors and outdoors)
Reading books
Doing puzzles
Going for a drive
Some of the things we do together, and some we do on our own. That’s the beauty of our situation! Multiple opportunities to grow into our own, get to know our families better, getting to know ourselves better!
In this trying time we are finding ourselves in ways we never would have otherwise. We are finding out how strong we are, what we can handle, and the things we are able to do in times of struggle! But, that’s a post for another day.
Much love!
Becca
